Remembering the young soldier who sought the company of a child too young to hide her curiosity rather than endure the sympathetic pity of his former comrades, her reply was different than courtesy demanded.
“No.” Her voice was neutral. “Do you cover your legs because they are deformed or because you are cold?”
She knew that she’d chosen correctly when his crack of laughter covered Talbot’s gasp at her temerity.
“A bit of both, I suppose,” Kerim answered with a surprising amount of humor considering his former bitterness. “The wretched things have started to twist up. Since it bothers me to look at them, I wouldn’t want to inflict the sight on anyone else.”
Sham observed him shifting slightly uncomfortably in the chair and said, “You ought to have more padding in the seat. And if you asked your wheelwright, he’d tell you that a lighter, larger wheel would turn more easily. You might try something like the ones on the racing sulkies—” she shrugged and found a seat on the wide arm of an expensive chair, “—if more padding and bigger wheels work for horses, they should work for you.”
The Reeve smiled. “I’ll take that under consideration. I trust that Talbot explained what we need you for?”
She grinned at him. “He said that I get to rummage through the houses of the aristocrats with your permission. It will certainly make life easier, if not as much fun.”
Talbot cleared his throat warningly, but Kerim shook his head and said, “Don’t encourage her, she’s just baiting you.”
“Who else is going to know about me?” she questioned, realizing that she was enjoying herself for the first time in a long time.
“Just Talbot and myself,” answered the Reeve. “I don’t know who else to trust.”
“What about your source?”
The Reeve’s eyebrows rose.
“You know, the one who told you the killer is here?”
“Elsic,” said Talbot. “He doesn’t know about ye, and we won’t be telling him.”
Sham looked at the Reeve’s discomforted face and Talbot’s bland one and thought that the first thing she would look for was this Elsic.
“Do you have any particular house that you want me to . . . explore first?” She asked.
Kerim shook his head and gave a frustrated grunt. “I don’t have any idea where to start. If you’ve robbed the manors of Landsend as frequently as the Whisper claimed, you probably have a better idea than I.”
Sham shook her head. “No. I’ve been fairly selective in my targets. I haven’t stolen anything from anyone with close connections to the Castle for . . . hmm . . . at least a year.” So she lied—did they really expect her to give them something solid enough to hang her with?
The Reeve grunted; she almost hoped he knew how much her answer was worth. “Talbot and I have talked about it. We thought it might help you to meet the people of the court before you decide which residences to . . .explore . I tire too easily of late to keep abreast of the latest gossip, and Talbot has no entrance to the court proper, as he not only is a stranger and a peasant, but also a Southwoodsman.”
“So am I,” she commented, “stranger, peasant, and Southwoods native as well.”
Talbot grunted. “But you’re not the Master of Security either.”
She allowed her lips to twist with amusement. “How are you going to introduce me to your court? ‘Excuse me, but I’d like to introduce you to the thief who has been relieving you of your gold. She’s going to look around and see if she can figure out which of you is killing people, so be sure that you tell her who it is.” ’
Kerim smiled sweetly with such innocence in his expression she knew immediately that she wasn’t going to like what he was about to propose. “The original idea was that you could become one of my household.”
Sham raised both of her eyebrows in disbelief. “Half the servants know who I am, and the rest of them will know before I leave here this morning. The only reason the thief-takers haven’t hauled me in is because they can’t prove what I do, and you have the reputation of punishing thief-takers who work with more zeal than evidence. A reputation, I might add, that I am extremely grateful you deserve.”
Kerim’s smile widened, and the innocence was replaced with sudden mischief and a certain predatory intentness that made her realize again how well the title of Leopard suited him. “When we found out just who and what you were, lady, Talbot and I came up with a much better solution. They know Sham the Thief—a boy. You are going to be Lady Shamera, my mistress.”
Talbot put his hand to his mouth and coughed when Sham spit out a surprised curse she’d learned from one of the more creative of her father’s men.
“Ye won’t have to go quite that far, lassie,” commented the Reeve blandly, in a fine imitation of Talbot, complete with seaman’s accent. “I don’t demand anything so. . . strenuous from my mistresses.”
Sham gave Kerim an evil glare, but she held her tongue. He was almost as good at teasing as she was, and she refused to present him with any more easy targets. She took a deep, even breath, and thought about what he’d proposed, her foot tapping on the floor with irritation.
“I expect—” she said finally, biting off the end of each word as if it hurt her, “—that you mean I am to play the role of mistress, not fulfill it.If that is the case, I am inclined to agree that the role would have its uses.”
A short silence greeted her, as if neither Kerim nor Talbot had expected her to give in so easily. Before either man had a chance to speak, the door opened and Dickon returned from replacing the statuette. Sham shot him a look of dislike which he returned with interest and doubtless more cause.
Clearing his throat, Dickon addressed the Reeve. “When I arrived at the emerald meeting room, Her Ladyship had already been summoned. She questioned my custody of her statuette. I had no choice but to inform her where it came from. She instructed me to tell you that she will be here momentarily.”
“Dickon, wait outside the door to welcome her in,” snapped the Reeve, and the servant responded to his tone and jumped to do his bidding.
“Hellfire,” swore Kerim. “If she sees you, she’ll recognize you when you reappear as a woman. My mother has eyes that would rival a cat’s for sharpness.” He wheeled rapidly to the fireplace that all but spanned one of the inner walls and pressed a carving. A panel of wood on the wall next to the fireplace slid silently inwards and rolled neatly behind the panel next to it, revealing a passageway.
“Ah,” commented Sham, tongue in cheek. “The fireplace secret-passageway; how original.”
“As the passage floor is mopped every other week, I would hardly call it ‘secret,” ’ replied the Reeve sardonically. “It will, however, allow you to avoid meeting my mother in the halls. Talbot, get her outfitted, cleaned up and back here as soon as you can.”
Sham bowed to the Reeve and then followed Talbot into the passageway, sliding the door in place behind her.
“WE NEED TOget ye clothes befitting a mistress of the Reeve,” commented Talbot.
“Of course,” replied Sham in a casual tone without reducing the speed of her walk.
“Lord Kerim told me to take ye t’home. My wife can find something for ye to wear until a seamstress can whip something up.” He cleared his throat. “He also thought we ought to take a week and ah . . . work on your court manners.”
“Wouldn’t do to have the Reeve’s mistress tagging valuable statuettes?” ask Sham in court-clear Cybellian as she stopped and looked at Talbot. “I should think not, my good man. Must not tarnish Lord Kerim’s reputation with this little farce.”
“Well now,” he said, rubbing his jaw. “I suspect that clothing might be all we have to worry about.”
She nodded and started off again. After a mile or so Talbot cleared his throat. “Ah, lassie, there is no place in Purgatory that carries the sorts of silks and velvet that ye need.”
She sent him a sly grin. “Don’t bet on it. If there is something that people will buy, Purgatory sel
ls it.”
He laughed and followed her deeper into Purgatory.
“THE PROBLEM WEface—” she explained as she led him through the debris-covered floor of a small, abandoned shop near the waterfront, “—is that a mistress of a high court official must always wear clothes built by a known dressmaker. Most of them wouldn’t let someone dressed like me through the door. If we managed to find one that would, it’d be the talk of the town by morning.”
She stooped and pulled up a section of loose floorboard out of the way, leaving a narrow opening into a crawlspace that the original owner of the building had used for storage. She had several such storage areas here and there around Purgatory and she was careful never to sleep near any of them. She had found she lost less of her belongings if she didn’t keep them with her.
“You’re too big to fit in here, Talbot. Wait just a moment.”
Sham slipped through the crack with the ease of long practice and slithered through the narrow crawlway until she came to the hollow that someone else had widened into a fair-sized space underneath the next building over. No one mopped the floor twice weekly here, and the dust made her eyes water.
She called a magelight and found the large wooden crate that held most of her clothing. Lifting the lid, she sorted through the costumes she had stored there until she came to a bundle carefully wrapped in an old sheet to protect it from the dust. As an afterthought, she also took her second-best thieving clothes and added them to her bundle.
In darkness again she crawled back out the small passage. She put the floorboard back and scuffed around with her feet until the dust by the loose floorboard was no more trampled than it was in the rest of the room.
“If you’ll turn your back for a bit, I’ll change into something that the dressmakers will find acceptable.”
Talbot nodded and walked a few paces away, staring through the dirt-encrusted window at the vague shapes of the people walking on the cobbled street outside, commenting, “For a Purgatory thief, ye know a lot about the court.”
Sham removed her belt and set it aside, after freeing the small belt pouch that carried the few coppers that she traveled the streets with. It gave her time to think about her answer.
“My mother was a lady in the king’s court, my father a minor noble,” implying that her parents were court parasites, poor gentry with aspirations and little else who hung on at court for the free boarding. Not flattering to them, but somehow she didn’t want to tarnish her father’s name by making it common knowledge that his daughter was a thief. Sham set the money aside and pulled out a comb, a few hairpins, and a clean cloth, before stripping out of her clothes.
“Didn’t ye have a place to go? Purgatory is not where I’d like to see a young court miss forced to live.” Like the gentleman he was, Talbot kept his back firmly toward her.
“After the Castle fell? No. My parents died when the gates were opened. They had no relatives who survived the invasion.” There had been no one to turn to, just a blind old man who had been her teacher. He had wanted to die as well, but she wouldn’t let him. Perhaps he would rather have gone then, than survive these last twelve years blind and magicless.
“How did you survive?”
“Not by selling my body,” she said dryly, finding the sympathy in his voice oddly disturbing. She used a touch of magic to dampen the cloth and cleaned her hands and face as well as she could. The rest of her was cleaner than most people in Purgatory were, but clean hands and face would have made her stand out. “I knew a little magic. Thieving is not a bad way to make a living, not after the first time—though I know a whore who says the same thing about her line of business. My choice has a longer career span.”
“If ye don’t get caught,” added Talbot, matching her dry tones.
“There is that,” agreed Sham politely.
She unfolded the sheet and took out the blue muslin underdress, shaking it out as best she could. The rest of the wrinkles were swiftly eliminated by another breath of magic. Usually she wouldn’t waste her energies on something so trivial, but she didn’t have time to heat a flatiron.
Once the dress was on, she slipped the knife that usually resided in her boot into the thigh sheath, and slipped her hand through the hole in the skirt to see if she could reach the handle. It was a little awkward, so she pulled the sheath over the narrow strips of leather that she’d tied around her thigh until the knife came more naturally to hand.
She had to leave off her arm sheath and dagger, but the long, sharp hairpin was almost as good. The yellow overdress covered the small slit in the skirt, but as it was open on the sides it didn’t hamper her access to the knife. A pair of yellow slippers completed the outfit.
“You can look, now,” she said, rolling the clothes she’d been wearing into the bundle she’d brought from the cubbyhole. She pulled her hair out of its braid and tugged the small wooden comb ruthlessly through the thick stuff until she was able to twist it neatly on the top of her head, securing it with the wicked hair pin.
“Now,” she said, “we are ready to visit the dressmakers and acquire a wardrobe.”
SHAMERA SWEPT INTOthe castle, leaving Talbot to direct the disposal of her purchases. Looking neither left nor right she followed the path that she’d taken earlier in the day.
She’d scorned Talbot’s suggestion that the Reeve wouldn’t take a woman of questionable taste as his mistress. Everyone knew that the Reeve had never taken a mistress, so she had to be extraordinary. With her angular features and slender body, that left her wardrobe.
The dress she wore was black, a color that the Cybellians used only for mourning. She’d had the seamstress lower the bodice and take off the sleeves, leaving most of her upper body exposed. Small sapphire-blue flowers, torn hastily from another dress at Shamera’s request, were sewn here and there on the satin skirt of her gown.
Her hair, free of its usual restraints, hung in thick soft waves past her shoulders and halfway down her back. She’d colored her lips a soft rose and lined her large eyes and darkened her lashes with kohl. Her face she’d powdered until it was even whiter than usual, a shocking contrast to the darker-skinned Cybellians. She had even changed her movements, exchanging her usual boyish stride for a sultry swaying walk that covered the same amount of ground in a completely different way.
When she’d emerged from the dressing room at the dressmaker’s, Talbot had started laughing.
“No one, but no one, is going to confuse ye wi’ Sham the thief.” Even the outrageous bill that she’d run up hadn’t been enough to take the wide grin off his face.
SHAMERA DIDN’T BOTHERto knock at the Reeve’s door, but thrust it open hard enough that it hit the wall behind it with a hollow thud.
“Darling,” she gushed in heavily accented Cybellian. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard that you were ill. Isthis why you broke off with me?”
After a dramatic pause at the door, Shamera rushed over to his side trailing expensive perfume behind her and ignoring the stunned looks on the faces of the man and woman who were sitting in chairs next to Kerim. As she crossed the floor she looked at them from the corner of her eye.
The woman was small and beautiful despite the fine lines around her mouth and nose. Her coloring was the same as the Reeve’s: thick dark hair, warm brown skin, and rich dark eyes. She must have been extraordinarily beautiful as a young girl; even now, with strands of silver and a slight softening of the skin of her neck, she would have brought a pretty penny at any of the higher-class brothels in Purgatory.
The man sitting next to her was similarly beautiful; his features were fine-boned and mobile, a refined version of the Reeve’s. The dark eyes were large and long-lashed. A warm, approving smile dawned on his lips at her appearance, revealing a single dimple.
Shamera reached the Reeve’s chair and leaned over, pressing a passionate kiss on his mouth, lingering longer than she’d really intended when he responded with matching theatrics. Breathing a little harder, she pulled back before s
he ended up sitting on his lap in front of the woman who, judging by the look of moral outrage on her face, could only be his mother.
“But sweetheart,what is it they are feeding you?” Sham looked with honest horror at the mush on the tray that sat on a table beside Kerim’s chair. She picked up the tray and sought out the servant standing in the shadows, where a good servant learned to make himself at home.
“You, sir, what is your name?”
“Dickon, my Lady.”
“Dickon, take this back to the kitchens and get something fit for a man to eat.” She thickened her vowels deliberately when she said “a man” itmight have been her accent.
The servant came forward to take the tray, stiffening slightly as he got a good look at her face. But he took the gold inlaid wooden slat without commenting and left the room before anyone had a chance to object to Shamera’s order. She turned back to the remaining three occupants in the room and noticed that Kerim had lost control of his laughter.
She widened her eyes at him and gestured dramatically, saying, “Horrid man, I come here torescue you, and all that you do is laugh at me. I think I shall leave.” With that she turned on one foot and took two steps toward the door.
“Shamera,” Kerim’s voice darkened and Sham felt as if he’d run a caressing hand down her back. “Come here.”
She turned back with a pout and crossed her arms under her breasts. The effect caused the other man in the room to swear softly in admiration and the immaculately garbed woman’s eyebrows rose as Shamera’s gown slid lower. Slender she might be, but not everywhere.
“Shamera.” There was a soft warning note in the Reeve’s voice, but Sham was glad that no one but she was looking at him. No one could have missed the inner amusement that danced in his eyes. She felt her lips slide out of their pout and into an honest smile in response.
“I’m sorry,” she offered softly, obediently traversing the floor between them, “but youknow I don’t like being laughed at.”
He took the hands she offered him and brought them to his lips in apology. “Dear heart, your presence is like a breath of summer in these dark chambers.” He spoke in the sultry voice that would have made a young maiden swoon.